Liseberg - Park Review 2018
You might remember that back in December 2017 Coaster Bot was voted ‘best established channel’ in the Clamshell Awards hosted by Jordan of Cupcakes and Coasters. Huge thanks to Jordan for hosting the awards and to everyone who voted. The channel won a trip to Liseberg which we recently went on in August 2018. It was pretty amazing.
We picked to visit the park on a Thursday near the end of August and prayed that it wouldn’t be busy - spoiler alert; it wasn’t. But before and after visiting the park we also took some time to explore Gothenburg as a city and it was really great. You can catch a ferry out to some remote car-less islands or spot some elks in the beautiful (and free!) zoo. It’s such a cool and varied place and we would really recommend checking it out if you’re there. One thing we loved about the whole trip was the fact that Liesberg was right in the city centre, so we could enjoy the city and the park as well.
Our first impressions of the park were that it was small and packed - but stunning. You could see quite a lot of the park from the outside, but from the inside it was much more impressive. There was only one main area which had its own theme; ‘Myths and Legends’ and we felt that another themed area would have been good - perhaps there’s simply not enough space for this? However, the rest of the park was still stylised in a way that gave us both vintage and contemporary vibes, which we loved. Due to the fact that Liseberg is squished right into the middle of Gothenburg and there isn’t much space in the park, a lot of the rides are sort of on top of each other. There’s a beautiful main street which spans pretty much along the length of the whole park, and this makes it really easy to get between the rides. So for most of the day we were quickly hopping back and forth between rides depending on the queue times and the small distance between them allowed us to get lots of re-rides in.
The Rides
Helix was the first ride we rode as soon as we walked into the park, so it was just getting going. We rode it with pretty low expectations and weren’t really anything from it at that point. We knew it would be great, but we didn’t think it would be that great! Especially that early during the day. It blew us away on the first ride and just kept getting better all day long. It has such a great layout, loads of airtime, a fantastic first drop and is situated on the side of the hill which makes it so much more interesting to ride. It quickly became one of our favourite roller coasters!
The new for 2018 dive coaster, Valkyria, was really snappy and has a nice layout. It’s probably got the best layout of all the European dive coasters we have experienced and seems to be a real crowd pleaser. It’s a great addition to the park line up. The only issue we had with it was the baggage system. You have to leave your bag in a locker situated in a tiny corridor near the ride exit (which doesn’t really make sense) and we think it will cost money for the lockers in the future. Not good.
One of the most surprising coasters at the park for us was Balder. It’s an airtime machine. The repetitive layout isn’t really something you notice when riding because you’re having way too much fun. It doesn’t get a long queue line so you can just hop on and ride, which is great. Back row is just fantastic and we didn’t expect to but we had so much fun on that ride!
The coaster that wins prize for most unusual ride at Liseberg is Lisebergbanan. It has a really interesting layout and it’s super fun to ride despite its slightly bumpy nature. The pacing is pretty odd but it’s a classic coaster with really nice terrain use, which makes it much more interesting to ride!
Other Rides
Liseberg has a huge collection of fantastic flat rides! Normally we wouldn’t be that fussed about them, but this park has so many good ones that we ended up doing quite a few. Probably one of our favourites was Loke, an Intamin Gyro Swing with great restraints (the world needs more of these). It was so cool to ride it and have beautiful views of the whole park and surrounding city. These views could also be seen from most of the other flat rides, in particular Aerospin - a Gerstlauer Sky Roller - on which you can really catch the wind and get a lot of spins in! If you’re not up for spinning then you can just chill and take in the views. You can also take in the views on AtmosFear - the drop tower - before you drop. We weren’t blown away by the actual drop which was a little pathetic compared to others, but it’s height was certainly impressive as it’s situated on a hill.
Some of the rides closer to the ground were also fun to ride. We were surprised at how much we enjoyed Jukebox - a Gerstlauer Polyp - which is a fantastic small flat ride and one which we would love to see more of in other parks. The log flume was also pretty fun despite its lack of themeing or things to see along the way. It was weird how there was a small drop, followed by a tiny straight section and then a bigger drop. However, it did use the terrain on some of the lift hills and drops which made it more interesting. Finally, there’s Mechanica - a Zierer Star Shape - which made us feel a little sick! It had some great force to it and after riding loads of other flat rides before it we couldn’t hack the spins. At this point it was getting dark so we turned to roller coasters to make us feel better...
The whole park at night looked stunning. There were so many beautiful lights dotted all over the place and such a cool use of flood lighting which made the park look magical in the dark. We got quite a lot of rerides at night which were all epic. We were so pleased that the park got quieter during the day to allow us to get so many rides in. We managed to get 5 rides in a row on Helix towards the end of the day - it was a blast.
Liseberg is a really great park with some fantastic roller coasters and a huge flat ride collection. Valkyria is a perfect edition to their line up! The only thing that we think it needs is another themed area like the ‘Myths and Legends’ area - it would just create another different space in the park to make it more exciting to walk around. We loved the overall styling of the park but another themed area would just make it even more impressive and exciting. The trip was amazing - we loved both the city of Gothenburg and Liseberg itself. We really hope to be back at Liseberg soon!
- Zoë and Harry
